


Keep the earth below my feet

by viverella



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Relationship Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 13:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viverella/pseuds/viverella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and Eames are doing this thing, this thing where they sleep together when they both happen to be in the same place and sometimes, maybe, they'll go out for dinner, and it's fine and it's all Arthur ever asked for, except, of course, like most things he has to go and mess it all up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep the earth below my feet

**Author's Note:**

> written for the [Inception Reverse Big Bang challenge](http://i-reversebang.livejournal.com), and oh dear god, I had forgotten how much of a struggle it is to write fic, especially on a deadline. I'm finally getting out of my year-long writing slump to pull together some semi-decent fic and really this fic is a little bit of a mess - it's paced weird and my characterization is rusty - but I'm working on it. I really am. writing again after this long is _hard_. 
> 
> thank you so so so so much to my lovely artist [lauand](http://lauand.livejournal.com), whose art is so amazing that it managed to get my out of my rut, and my beautiful beta [twoheartstolove](twoheartstolove.livejournal.com), both of whom are the greatest in the world for putting up with my perpetual barely-finishing-things-for-deadlines-ness. thank you thank you! it's been wonderful. and please, do go check out lauand's [art masterpost](http://lauand.livejournal.com/111887.html), because her work is absolutely gorgeous and deserves every wonderful praise in the world. 
> 
> (title borrowed from Mumford & Sons. I'm such a cliche, I know.)

Arthur’s first thought is that he’s dreaming. The pull of the fall and the roar of the air rushing past his ears are so familiar by now that he almost doesn’t panic for the first few seconds, but then the adrenaline kicks in and the past day flashes before his eyes and he knows, he _knows_ that there’s almost no way that he could be dreaming. He remembers waking up and taking a taxi into downtown Lisbon, hacking into a hotel security system while eating lunch at a café, and then having dinner before getting dressed up in a beautiful charcoal suit to attend a benefit dinner he didn’t have an invitation to, remembers gritting his teeth as he watched Eames chat up foreign dignitaries and businessmen and beautiful young things. 

And _Eames_ , oh god, _Eames_ , they’ve only just started doing whatever it is that they’re doing, going out for an odd meal each day and falling into bed with one another at night, and he’s gone and fucked all that up. Because Eames is pissed at him, _has been_ pissed at him for a couple weeks now, and Arthur knows he’s been a huge fucking jackass to Eames, too stubborn to admit that maybe he’d been wrong starting that fight they’d had late one night, and whatever they had, whatever they could have had, that could all be over now, just like that. Arthur remembers having wanted, even months ago when this had first started, so badly to see this out, to stick around long enough to watch this whole thing potentially go up in flames for the first time in longer than he can remember (though perhaps part of him always knew he’d bee too frightened to actually see this through), and he exhales a breath and closes his eyes as the wind whips past him. 

_What a way to go_ , he thinks bitterly.

\---

“Let’s go get dinner,” Eames had said to Arthur the first night they met, when Arthur was still twenty-one and young and unscarred by the worst things dreamshare had to offer. He’d only just started working with Dom and he was at a bar in Mumbai blowing off steam after a long day of researching. 

Arthur had laughed at the time and pinned Eames with a stare that said he knew exactly who Eames was (because he did, because Dom had hinted they were bringing on someone new, someone who could change his face with a flick of his fingers, and Arthur had done his research). He’d downed his drink and told Eames that he’d better drag his ass to the warehouse the next day because they had a lot of work to do, leaving Eames stunned and speechless. 

The next day, when Eames swaggered in and leered at Arthur, all loud bravado and flirtatious smiles, Arthur had just rolled his eyes and shoved a dossier in his direction and said, “Get to work, Mr. Eames.”

\---

“Let’s go get dinner,” Eames had said to Arthur again, something like seven or eight years later, at the baggage claim at LAX. 

And maybe it had been the adrenaline left over from getting out of the mess that had been the inception job alive or maybe Arthur had just gotten tired of fighting what he knows that he’s wanted for years or maybe Eames just looked stupidly good in that stupid suit of his and Arthur had found himself saying yes and then several hours later, he found himself in bed with Eames, breathless and flushed and Eames had laughed and poked at the dimples pressing themselves into Arthur’s cheeks. 

“I never knew you were so adorable, darling,” Eames had said, all singsong and sweeter than Arthur has ever heard from him. “You should’ve told me earlier. I’d never have let you elude me for so long if I’d known.”

“Shut up and go to sleep, Mr. Eames,” Arthur had grumbled, doing a very poor job of hiding the smile pulling at his mouth, hitting Eames on the shoulder and sinking his head into a pillow. He’d gone to sleep that night with Eames’ laughter ringing in his ears and the warm weight of his skin against his back and, against all odds, when he’d woken up the next morning, he hadn’t regretted his decision.

\---

The job Eames comes to him with is supposed to be straightforward and simple, though Arthur supposes that just about everything seems easy after the clusterfuck that was the inception job. It’s a routine thing, kidnap a business mogul at a benefit dinner in Lisbon and extract his plans for a possible upcoming merger that is rumored to boost the value of his company by several million dollars, and then it’s just turning the information over to their mark’s competitor, getting their money, and getting out of there. It’s the type of extraction that Arthur has done time and time again, the kind of thing that’s so routine that he doesn’t even have to think about how to do it; it just comes naturally. 

It’s the kind of job Arthur wouldn’t have batted his eyes at even if this were before the inception job. In fact, he probably wouldn’t have taken it if it hadn’t been Eames asking him, if it hadn’t been this exact team working it. If he were to really think about it, he’d probably come to the conclusion that it is exactly because of this precise team that Arthur took this job in the first place. He’s gotten lazy, he supposes, in part because the paycheck he’d received from Saito was more than enough to settle into an early and very, very comfortable retirement. Along the same line, he supposes that he’s also gotten a bit arrogant about the whole thing, because, though he’s never said it aloud, anything that’s not as challenging and new and exciting as the inception job (as much of a hassle as it was) just seems _boring_ and Arthur doesn’t want anything to do with it. 

And yet, when Eames had come to him with the job offer about a month ago, Arthur hadn’t hesitated about accepting. Arthur had reasoned that he hadn’t had anything going on (after all, all he’d been doing since the inception job was vacationing at his favorite summer home in Cannes, with occasional visits from Eames when he “just so happens to be in town”) and anyways, Eames had already called up Ariadne and Yusuf to help out, and Arthur had wanted to see the old team, so he’d packed up what small number of essentials he keeps at his apartment and flown to Portugal without a second thought. And when he’d arrived and Eames had been there to pick him up and take him to lunch and then back to his hotel room, and Arthur had felt pretty confident that this would go well. 

\---

Except, of course, things are never that easy. 

Except, of course, that inevitably, one of them is going to start poking around the questions that Arthur leaves unanswered when he falls into bed with Eames, pressed between sheets and forgotten in the morning. 

\---

“You should move in with me,” Eames says one night after a long day of prepping for the job at hand. They’re in Eames’ hotel room, curled up together under the covers, all bare skin and warm bodies and the hazy afterglow of a few very nice orgasms. “After this is over, or whenever. You said you liked London.”

“Mmm,” Arthur hums noncommittally, tracing his fingers over the dark, inky swirls of Eames’ tattoos. 

“What do you think?” Eames prods, pushing Arthur’s disheveled hair out of his face. 

Arthur looks up and leans in to kiss Eames. “I’ll think about it,” he murmurs against Eames’ mouth. 

Eames pulls back suddenly and gives Arthur a quizzical look. “What? That’s it?” Eames says, but his eyes are still laughing a little around the corners. 

Arthur raises his eyebrows at Eames and leans back to level Eames with a look that screams _‘you’re an idiot’_ , and he says, “Eames, we’ve only been doing _this_ – whatever this is – for a few months. You can’t really expect me to just up and move in with you just like that.”

“Well not now, obviously,” Eames says, visibly retreating in an uncharacteristically timid move. “And I don’t necessarily mean permanently. Just, you know, something to think about. For the future.”

Arthur stares at Eames with a sort of inscrutable look and twists his mouth around the words that want to burst forth, the denials and complaints over how completely illogical Eames’ proposal is, because they’re transient people at the heart of it all, they don’t ever stay in one place for long enough to ever even consider the idea of moving in together, even on a temporary basis, and Arthur’s too used to being alone, too set in his ways to consider making room for anyone else in his life on anything more than a day to day. 

Arthur needs his space, and he tells Eames as much, which makes Eames frown in a way that Arthur decides that he doesn’t like. And somehow, though he means to apologize or at least mention that he doesn’t intend to sound as sharp as he does, because he’s just being _practical_ , he ends up sliding out of bed and picking up his clothes and scowling at Eames as Eames shouts about how Arthur’s so flighty and undependable all the time, how he always just packs up and leaves at a moment’s notice, how he can’t seem to commit. And Arthur shoots back that Eames is no better, Eames who flirts with anything that moves, Eames who still winks and tosses out smooth comments to any pretty thing he runs into even though he and Arthur have been sleeping together off and on for months now (not that they’re exclusive or anything, not that they’ve talked about it). And somehow, they’re fighting, full out fighting, screaming hurtful things they don’t mean, and Arthur winds up back to his own room (because he always gets his own room, no matter where he is or who he’s with) and he’s angry, he’s so, _so_ angry and he can’t even remember why. 

Arthur spends that night alone, but he doesn’t sleep, not well anyways. He shows up at the warehouse the next day with dark circles under his eyes, and neither Ariadne or Yusuf comment on how he’s showing up alone or how utterly wrecked he looks. Ariadne just hands him a cup of coffee and stares at him with her lips pressed tightly together in tense concern, crossing her arms as he walks past her to the table that he’s commandeered as his desk. 

When Eames walks in a few hours later, Arthur doesn’t look up and the other two thankfully don’t say anything, though Arthur hears Ariadne sigh softly from her corner of the warehouse. 

He doesn’t talk to Eames for the whole day.

\---

In hindsight, Arthur thinks that maybe if they’d both been less stubborn about the whole thing and if their egos had been fractionally smaller, maybe this whole thing wouldn’t have turned out so badly. Because maybe then one of them would’ve caved and been the bigger man and apologized or at least tried to talk to the other in any way outside of what is considered strictly professional. Maybe then one of them would’ve been looking out for the other more carefully when the job went south. Maybe one of them would’ve seen the hidden gunman coming at them from across the rooftop they’d been running across. Maybe Arthur would have had more options other than falling headfirst off a building. 

\---

The day of the job goes something like this:

Arthur wakes up alone in his hotel room feeling unrested despite having slept for at least seven hours. He showers and dresses with the sort of efficiency that comes from years of military school training and a deep-seeded need to waste as little time as possible. He grabs a latte at a coffee shop a couple doors down from his hotel and then catches a cab.

Arthur heads downtown and finds a café on the same block as the hotel the benefit dinner they’ll be infiltrating is being held at and picks up breakfast. He orders another coffee to get the burning, tired feeling out of his eyes and a sandwich to go before checking into the hotel under a false name. He unpacks his various laptops and surveillance gear and sets about hacking into the hotel’s security system as he eats. 

After overriding the hotel’s security feeds and alarm controls, as well as anything else he thinks they might need, he goes about pulling up the schematics of the hotel to brief the others, and then Ariadne is walking in, garment bag and PASIV in tow. Her hair is in a messy bun and she’s humming quietly to herself as she sets her things down, and Arthur can’t help thinking that this is the closest Ariadne has ever seemed to twenty-two, because she’s so sharp and precocious and handy with a gun that he often forgets that she’s so much younger than him.

Ariadne tells him about a weird dream she had (because she hasn’t done much in the way of dreamshare yet, because she can still escape to other worlds when she sleeps) and then mentions something about lunch and twenty minutes later, room service arrives even though Arthur doesn’t remember her ordering. They eat in an easy silence and then Ariadne goes off to shower. 

Yusuf comes in some time later and Eames a couple hours later, when Arthur is in the shower, and when Arthur comes out, already dressed in a crisp white shirt and charcoal slacks. As he carefully and expertly slips into the rest of his outfit for the night, he briefs the team on their mark and the layout of the hotel and the plan they’ve devised for the night and it’s all so routine that Arthur almost falls asleep during it, except that Eames isn’t looking at him and his brow is furrowed and he looks so impossibly angry that just looking at him makes Arthur angry at him all over again. 

Arthur wants to snap – that what? That Eames is being an idiot? That _Arthur_ is being an idiot? That if Eames would just take a second to see how impractical commitment at the level Eames is expecting is in their line of work, this whole thing would be resolved? – but Ariadne and Yusuf are here and Arthur doesn’t want to make a scene, especially since they’re about to do a job and they need to focus, so he just bites his tongue and continues with the briefing. And then they’re headed down to the benefit dinner and Ariadne is on Arthur’s arm, looking refined and poised and elegant, Eames and Yusuf arriving separately a little later. 

The dinner auction goes well and at the reception dinner, they intercept their mark, slip a sedative into his drink, and take him up to the suite that they’ve got and then they all go under and everything should have all been fine. 

They wake up fifteen minutes later, and everything is absolutely not fine. 

\---

The extraction itself goes well. The problem is when they wake up, it’s to someone kicking down the door and a shower of bullets. Arthur has barely enough time to think before he’s reaching for his Glock and firing back. And from there, it’s a rush of bullets and bodies falling and Arthur’s shouting “ _Cover me!_ ” at everyone, anyone, and he’s snapping up the PASIV and snatching up any papers or equipment that might connect any of them to the job and it’s a mess, it’s all a huge fucking mess, and this is the worst cleanup job Arthur has ever done but there’s no time to do better and suddenly, they’re bolting out the door after dropping the gunmen who burst through the door. 

They run, because that’s all you can do when gunmen are converging in on you from almost all sides, and they run and suddenly they’re in the stairwell, and Arthur isn’t sure how many people they’ve left dead (he’s not even sure if their mark’s alive). All he knows is they have to get out of there and his legs are moving as fast as they can and his heart is pounding in his ears as he bolts up and up and up the stairs. 

They wind up on the roof (and who’s idea was that, because seriously, this has got to be one of the worst places to run right now) and there are gunmen bursting through the door to the roof and Arthur sets down the PASIV to whip out his gun again and firing back because what else can he do at this point? Eames is next to him, steel-faced and firing at the gunmen, and Yusuf is cursing as he shoots, and even Ariadne is determinedly putting up fight, inexperienced as she is (and if they weren’t about to be killed at any moment, Arthur would have been overwhelmed with pride at how well she’s handling herself).

And suddenly, something hits Arthur in the shoulder with enough force to send him reeling backwards and he knows the instant his foot hits the edge of the roof that he’s not going to be able to catch his balance before he falls. 

\---

\---

They say that your life flashes before your eyes before you die. 

Arthur’s always known that this is a lie, but falling off a building after being shot in the shoulder does indeed put things in perspective. He knows the shot in his shoulder was clean, that the bullet went straight through without hitting anything vital, and if it weren’t for the fall, he wouldn’t have a doubt in his mind that he’d survive this. Arthur knows that with the height of the building, it’s fairly unlikely that he’ll survive unless, miraculously, something breaks his fall. He knows to orient his feet downwards and spread his limbs out to slow his fall as much as he can. And most of all, he knows that he’s quite possibly fucked everything up with Eames and now he most likely won’t have a chance to fix it.

Arthur hopes desperately, stupidly, that they’re still dreaming, but he remembers waking up and he remembers how he got here and when he reaches into his pocket for his little red die and when he feels the weight of it in his hand, he knows, without a doubt that this is real life. He closes his eyes and braces himself for impact and wonders how everything got so fucked up, because just a couple weeks ago, he and Eames were happy and together, and as weird as this thing they’ve had going on is, it’s nice and it’s comforting in a way that few things have been in Arthur’s life in the past several years. He wonders if he would have seen this ambush coming if he hadn’t been so distracted with how angry he’s been at Eames. He wonders if Eames would ever have forgiven him if things had gone differently and Arthur’d had the chance to do something about this mess. 

Arthur hits something with a loud _crunch_ and pain worse than anything he’s ever felt shoots through his body and then his vision goes black.

\---

The world bleeds red and Arthur’s mouth tastes hot and metallic. Everything around him reeks of death and his ears are ringing, white noise filling everything, and someone is shouting at hi, but it’s like he’s hearing it through a thick fog and Arthur feels cold all over. Arthur’s vision swims and goes black when he tries to shift and his entire body is consumed with pain.

“Arthur!” 

And Arthur can’t open his eyes, he just can’t, because everything hurts and he’s so tired and all he wants to do is give in to the blackness swallowing him, even though he knows better than to do that, even though he’s been trained to do everything but that. But he’s exhausted and he can’t feel with fingers and he’s so, so cold.

“Arthur!”

And Arthur feels a pressure on his mouth and it takes him too long to realize that someone is kissing him, kissing him or resuscitating him or maybe just trying to get his attention, and Arthur still can’t manage to open his eyes. 

_“Arthur.”_

The voice is softer now, like this person is whispering, and Arthur feels a soft hand on his face and even that hurts, and the blackness is swelling up and engulfing him again. He loses all grasp on the world around him and all he knows is that he’s tired and he’s going to sleep now and he’s still so, so cold.

\---

Arthur wakes as if through a thick, cottony haze, white noise fading away slowly into smudgy shapes that come in and out of focus as he struggles to find something solid to hang onto. His whole body feels numb and he struggles to crack his eyes open for longer than a few seconds. There’s a heavy, solid weight on his hand, and it’s the only thing he can feel, the only thing anchoring him to what’s solid and real. He reaches towards that weight with his whole body, because he doesn’t know what else to do, and he holds on as tight as he can.  
Suddenly, everything shifts, and when Arthur is able to pry his eyes open, he sees a blurry figure slumped over the side of his bed. It’s a hand holding his, he realizes, and if he were more awake, he might even recognize the touch.

“Arthur?” a voice calls out to him, and it sounds so foggy and far away. 

Arthur struggles to keep his eyes open. He feels warm hands on his face and when he manages to blink his eyes open again, he sees a face close to his, tight with concern.  
“Eames?” Arthur mumbles, but his voice comes out as an unintelligible slur. 

“Arthur,” Eames breathes. “Oh, thank fuck, _Arthur_.”

Arthur feels warm lips on his forehead and then before Arthur is ready to let go, the warmth is gone. Vaguely, Arthur can hear footsteps fading off into the distance, but he’s so tired and he’s cold now that Eames has gone and he wants nothing more than to sleep, so he closes his eyes and lets the world black out once more.

\---

Arthur wakes next to the sound of a soft, sweet voice. It seems to be talking to him, rambling on without pausing for any sort of response, and it’s soothing in a way that grounds Arthur as he tries to figure out where he is and what’s going on. The air is warm around Arthur, warmer than he remembers from the last time he woke up, and his body feels stiff and numb. He searches for the weight that held him last time, that pulled him safely to shore, but he finds none and when he finally opens his eyes, straining against every urge to just keep them shut and sleep, he doesn’t see Eames sitting next to him. 

Instead, Ariadne is sitting in a chair pulled up next to his cot, her legs folded neatly under her as she reads aloud from a heavy text in her lap. Listening more carefully, Arthur recognizes familiar lines from _Through the Looking-Glass_ , and he wonders why Ariadne chose that to read to him and where she got that book in the first place, because he’s pretty sure no one had a copy on them in Lisbon. And, most importantly, he wonders where the fuck he is because there’s no way they can still be in Portugal but everything around him, the sterile, white room, the slightly uncomfortable cot, the IV dripping slowly into his arm, everything about it screams hospital, even though there’s no way this can be a proper hospital because they’re _criminals_ , they can’t just go rushing into any hospital they want. He can’t imagine that he would have lasted long after the fall he took and knows that they must’ve rushed him to a hospital or at least someone with extensive medical knowledge quickly and he wonders if he would have had enough time left in him to make it out of the country. 

It takes Arthur a moment to realize that Ariadne’s voice has stopped speaking and Ariadne lets out a soft gasp of surprise and relief. “ _Arthur_ ,” she says, with feeling, tossing the book aside. She gingerly pulls him into a hug, well aware of broken bones and barely healed wounds, murmuring quietly, “I thought we lost you. We all did.”

“How did I…?” Arthur asks, folding an arm around Ariadne, slowly becoming all too aware of how bandaged up he is, wrapped up in gauze and plaster casts holding his body in place at it works at mending itself. 

Ariadne pulls back a little and Arthur can see that her eyes are damp and it physically _pains_ him to see her like this, looking so young and vulnerable and shattered, because she’s usually so strong and cool under pressure that he forgets that when they picked her up, she was still a student. 

“You almost didn’t, Arthur,” Ariadne says softly, her voice breaking around his name. He notices for the first time just how pale and tired she looks, dark circles under her eyes like she hasn’t slept in days. “See, after the inception job, I got EMT trained. Figured it’d be good to know how to save someone if this was the business I was getting myself into. I never thought I’d actually have to rescue one of my friends like that, though.”

And as Ariadne tells him how she, clever girl that she is, broke out that med kit that no one even knew she brought with her as they rushed away from the hotel in a car that Eames stole, all Arthur can think of is those small, delicate hands trying to save his broken, bleeding body amid gunfire and racing cars, and he feels so irrationally guilty for falling off of that building, even though he knows in the back of his head that it’s really not his fault. 

“You’re a lucky man, Mr. Arthur,” a woman’s accented voice says from across the room. A woman with lovely dark skin and sharp eyes is smiling at him. “Ariadne refused to give up on you.”

Arthur nods in thanks but his eyebrows furrow without him meaning to, confused as to who this woman is and why she’s looking at him like he’s a miracle. 

“I’m Nadira,” the woman says, picking up a clipboard with what Arthur assumes are medical notes clipped to it. “I’m Yusuf’s wife. You’re lucky I was in London for the weekend and not Mombasa.”

“Yusuf’s…?” Arthur frowns at her as she checks his vitals.

Nadira laughs and shakes her head fondly. “Did he not mention me?” she asks, amused. “That silly man. I love him dearly, but he’s so spacy sometimes, you know?” She fiddles with the settings of his IV drip. “I met him in Mombasa, actually. After med school, I joined Doctors Without Borders and I was assigned to Kenya. I was out for lunch one day and I bumped into him and, well, here we are.” She sets down the clipboard and smiles at him. “Looks like you’re going to make a full recovery, Mr. Arthur.”

“How did I…? Are we in London?” Arthur asks, still so, so confused because still no one has explained anything important to him, and he hates not knowing things (after all, it’s his _job_ to know things) and he hates not knowing things about his own life most of all. 

Nadira laughs. “An awning broke your fall,” she says casually, as if that’s something that happens all the time. “You’re lucky the hotel wasn’t too tall, and you’ve got good training for dealing with falls. You broke a lot of bones and you’ve been out cold for a couple weeks, but with the proper care and physical therapy, you’ll certainly be back to your usual, limber self in due time.”

And as Nadira explains that they’re somewhere in the Spanish countryside and how she flew in from London as quickly as she could when Eames had called her, frantic and panicking and screaming something about how he’d called in a favor with an old friend and she’d better get her ass on that plane _this fucking second_ or god help him, he’s going to have to operate on Arthur himself and he’d really, really rather someone with actual medical experience take care of that. So she’d gotten on the private jet that Eames had called for her and flown over and was in surgery from the moment she landed until several hours later. 

And somewhere in the middle of her telling this story, Yusuf slips in and brings Arthur a tray of soup and something that looks like jello and tells him that he needs to eat because he’s looking too thin and he’s been living off of nutrients from an IV drip for something like two weeks. Arthur opens his mouth to protest that he’s not that hungry, really he isn’t, but Ariadne shoots him a stern look, and he obediently drinks his soup and finishes about half of his jello – which is cherry flavored plus something else, which Arthur suspects is Yusuf sneaking in more nutrients into his food – before he starts feeling too sleepy to keep his eyes open anymore. He’s all warm from the soup and his body isn’t used to being awake for this long, and as he starts to drift off, he thinks he hears another voice join the murmuring around him. But Arthur is tired, he’s so, so tired and he passes out before he can see who it is.

\---

The rest of the week passes as a blur for Arthur. He’s asleep most of the time, and when he’s not, Nadira will come check up on him and make sure everything’s fine. Usually, Yusuf or Ariadne will bring him a meal while he’s awake and they’ll chat and sometimes Ariadne will read to him some more and it’s fine, it’s all fine, really, because Arthur’s going to be okay now and they’re all out of danger, tucked away in this safe house that they’ve managed to procure in the remote Spanish countryside, but Arthur’s still not completely settled. It’s like there’s something under his skin, itching at him each time he gets too comfortable. Because Arthur knows that everything’s not _fine_ , not _really_ , because he knows that his body is going to heal alright but he hasn’t seen Eames all this time, not once, and part of him knows that _that_ part of his life has probably shattered entirely, broken beyond repair. 

A week passes, and then two, and then Nadira deems Arthur well enough to go outside, and Ariadne spends an entire afternoon pushing him around in a wheelchair and exploring the grounds and chattering on about anything that comes to mind. And Arthur is very resolutely _okay_ with everything, he’s _content_ , but he’s not quite happy, not really anyways, and Eames still hasn’t come to see him once – isn’t he worried about Arthur? Doesn’t he care? If Eames had been in Arthur’s position, Arthur still would have come to check up on him, even after their fight, even though he’s still angry at Eames, even though he still thinks Eames was being too petty about everything. Arthur wonders if Eames is even still here, if he’s fled to some remote corner of the world yet. 

Arthur almost asks Ariadne if Eames is still here, because not knowing _killing_ him, but he stops himself before the words leave the tip of his tongue, hating himself for being so stubborn, hating himself for trying too hard to not be the first one to crack. Instead, Arthur bites his tongue and lets Ariadne bring him dinner in bed and chat with him until he passes out, exhausted from his day out and worn out from pretending that everything is just fine. 

\---

Arthur dreams that he’s falling. He dreams that he’s falling and the air is screaming in his ears and he’s reaching out around him for something, anything to catch him. And Arthur feels the darkness creeping up on him and it’s choking him and he feels like he’s drowning and he can hear someone calling out to him and he tries to reach towards the voice, tries to pull himself to it, but he’s falling too fast and the darkness is growing too thick and Arthur can’t even breathe anymore and it’s too much. It’s all too much.

“Arthur!”

Arthur’s eyes fly open as he jerks awake, gasping and soaked in sweat, still fearing the darkness closing in on him behind his eyelids. His heart feels like it’s about to burst out of his chest and he fights the panic rising high in his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and reminding himself that he’s okay, he’s on solid ground, and he’s not falling anymore, he’s safe. He’s safe and it was just a dream and it shouldn’t rattle Arthur as much as it does – after all, this isn’t the first time that he’s had a near-death experience – and he’s seen and been through too much to be this shaken. And this is all just stupid, isn’t it? Arthur wonders what’s been different all this time, why he hasn’t ever had a reaction like this before (and really _what the fuck_ , because he’s not supposed to even be able to dream anymore). 

“Arthur.” 

Arthur blinks his eyes open and jerks his head in the direction of the voice, shocked into stunned silence when he sees Eames standing over him, brow pinched in concern, his face cloudy and inscrutable. 

And Arthur thinks _oh_. 

_Eames_.

Arthur opens his mouth to apologize, to explain himself, to do _something_ to make up for how much of a jackass he’d been to Eames, how stupid he’d been about their fight, but the words get stuck in his throat. He all but chokes on the apologies and ends up floundering around for several moments before snapping his mouth shut again. 

Eames breathes out and it sounds oddly like a sigh of relief – that Arthur is here, that he’s grounded himself, that he’s okay again, perhaps. Eames sags into a chair pulled up next to Arthur’s bed, and Arthur wonders how often Eames has sat here watching him, waiting for him to wake up. Arthur wonders if Eames is still angry with him. 

“You okay?” Eames asks after a long moment. His voice sounds tight and tense, but Arthur can hear the weariness in his voice and wonders privately how long it’s been since Eames has properly slept. 

Arthur blinks, realizing that he’s been quiet for too long. “Uh, yeah,” Arthur says, wincing at how hoarse he sounds, his voice rough from disuse. And then after a pause, he adds, “Thanks.”

Eames nods and lets his shoulders slump, hanging his head and resting his arms on his knees. He looks so beaten down and tired and Arthur wants to reach out and run his hands through Eames’ hair like he used to when everything was still alright between them, when Arthur could give and take as freely as he pleased. 

The silence hangs heavily between them and Arthur wants to say something, anything, to break the tension, to crack Eames open and draw him in close again, but he doesn’t even know where to begin, where to start making up for everything he’s fucked up in the past weeks.

“Eames—” Arthur starts finally, trying to figure out what he’s going to say as the words rise up in his throat. 

Eames stands abruptly, jerkily reaching out as if to coax Arthur back into a resting position. “You need rest,” Eames says, easing Arthur back down with a touch that falls somewhere between gentle and timid. 

And Arthur wants to fight him, wants to grab him and demand that they talk about this now, that they work this out because this has been going on for too long and Arthur’s so tired of pretending like it doesn’t bother him. But Eames is looking at him like he’s a million miles away and Arthur has never seen Eames look so scared, so Arthur lets Eames tuck him in again and watches as Eames retreats out of the room like a skittish cat. 

Arthur falls asleep without realizing it, and when he wakes up the next morning, the room is empty, and Arthur feels more alone than he has all this time. 

\---

Nadira starts Arthur walking the next day, since his legs and spine have healed enough to support him, giving him crutches to use and Arthur has flashbacks to being fifteen and hobbling around school for several weeks with a cast on his leg because of an unfortunate soccer accident. She helps him walk a couple laps around the house before he tires himself out, worn out from sitting around all day for weeks. She laughs as she brings him his lunch, chatting happily with him about how well he’s been recovering. 

It turns out Ariadne flew out to Paris this morning before Arthur woke (though in true Ariadne fashion, she left a charming note explaining that she’s sorry but people will be wondering where she’s run off to), intent on finishing up her PhD, more for formality’s sake than anything else. Yusuf comes in and joins them for lunch, and neither of them says anything about Eames, but Arthur assumes that Eames is still here because Eames and Yusuf are friends and Yusuf would mention it if Eames wasn’t here anymore, right?

Arthur half hopes that Eames will come to see him again – after all, he’s obviously been sitting with Arthur while he’s sleeping; he must still care, right? – but days pass and Arthur’s walking more steadily again and Arthur starts wandering around the house on crutches and he still doesn’t see Eames. And really, how does he do that? How can he just disappear like that when he knows Arthur’s going to be looking for him? Why is Eames even still here if he doesn’t want to talk? 

\---

It’s a full week before Arthur finds Eames again (or perhaps it’s a week until Eames lets Arthur find him again, because they’re both so good at this, at hiding when they need to). Eames is out leaning against a tree, staring aimlessly out at the empty countryside around them. His shoulders are hunched and he’s wearing that ridiculous tweed blazer that Arthur hates and his hands are fiddling restlessly with his red poker chip, and Arthur feels something crack inside of him because everything about Eames’ posture is broken and shattered and restless. And as Arthur walks closer to Eames, he catches the side of Eames’ face and notices how sunken Eames’ cheeks are, how noticeable the bags under Eames’ eyes are. Arthur’s gut clenches at the thought that Eames has been missing sleep and meals because of him, and part of Arthur wants to run away, to turn around and just run because that’s what he’s good at, that’s what he knows how to do. But Arthur’s been running all his life and he’s spent too much time running – from Eames and what he wants and what he feels and Eames, and Eames, and _Eames_ – and Arthur thinks it’s maybe about time he lets himself have something for once instead of giving up like it’s some sort of penance. 

“Hey,” Arthur says as he makes his way closer to Eames.

Eames doesn’t even start, like he knew Arthur was coming, like even after ignoring each other for so long, he still has that intuitive sense of where Arthur is all the time (or maybe he’s always had that ability and he always will and no matter how many years pass, Arthur will never be able to surprise him like this).

Eames looks over his shoulder at Arthur and gives a slight, impassive nod. “Hey,” he says quietly, his voice retaining some of that tenseness from that night he last saw Arthur. 

Arthur doesn’t know what to say for a long time, but Eames doesn’t run and instead stares out at the landscape in front of them, posture tight and hunched, as if he’s braced for impact. Arthur marvels at how incredibly defensive everything about Eames is and wonders if Eames has always been this way or if this is something he had to learn the hard way. 

“I’m sorry,” Arthur finally says, as if that will make up for anything, as if it makes a difference as to whether Eames will still have him or not. Arthur tries again, “I’m a huge fucking asshole; I know that. It’s always been the problem. I’m an asshole and I ruin things because I get weird about commitment and I get scared and— Eames, I don’t know how to _do this_. I don’t know how to just be with someone and not worry that they’re going to turn around and stab me in the back. I don’t know how to have a _normal_ relationship, and when you offered me that, it was so far from what I know how to do that I panicked. And it was wrong of me, and I lashed out and I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry, Eames. I’m so, so sorry.”

Eames lets out a huff that might be a laugh or just a sigh and Arthur can’t breathe, because everything he hasn’t said is getting stuck in his throat and he’s choking on it and he can’t tell if Eames is going to accept him again or not and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Eames presses his lips together and tilts his head to look at Arthur properly. Arthur tries to take comfort in the fact that Eames’ expression isn’t as distant now as it was the last time he saw him, but Eames still isn’t smiling and Arthur doesn’t think he’s ever been more scared in his life. 

“You don’t even let me try, you know,” Eames says finally, slowly, carefully like he’s stepping around shards of shattered glass. “You won’t even let me try to be with you.”

“I know,” Arthur says, the words tumbling out ungracefully before he can stop them, and he opens his mouth to keep going, but Eames beats him to the punch. 

“You scared the hell out of me,” Eames says, “Falling off of that building like that. I could tell then, you know, that if you’d just let me, I could maybe even love you. But when you woke up, I got scared, I guess, by what that meant. Not because I thought I couldn’t do it, mind you, but because I wasn’t sure what you would do with me if I let you have me.”

Arthur doesn’t know what to say. He’s been expecting all this time for Eames to be furious, for Eames to come at him with all he’s got, and instead Eames is painfully sincere and vulnerable, his posture unraveling from tension to genuine openness with each word he says, and Arthur doesn’t know which is worse. 

“Arthur, you have to know that I’m not disposable,” Eames says. “And I can never tell if you really get that enough to take this seriously, because every time I’ve ever brought up anything that would have made our relationship more serious and _real_ , you’ve all but laughed it off. I mean I act like I couldn’t give a flying fuck what happens, but it’s an _act_ , that’s all. I just… I need to know that you get that, that you know me well enough to know that I’m not joking around when I say that this is what I want.”

And Arthur would laugh if he could find his voice, because isn’t this just ridiculous? Because Eames is afraid of the same thing Arthur has been afraid of all along, because maybe Arthur hasn’t ruined it all after all.

“Are you saying…?” Arthur asks, daring to let some hope sneak into his tone.

Eames laughs, finally, beautifully, the sound warm and welcome after weeks of absence, if a little tired and worn out. “I’m not saying things are okay, just like that,” he says, as if Arthur would assume that it’s that easy. 

“What are you saying, then?” Arthur asks, and he can feel the mood of their conversation shifting to something more playful, something a little more like their banter before Arthur had gone and fucked this whole thing up.

Eames shrugs and looks back out at the scenery around them. “I’m saying… I might have some extra room in my flat in London, if you’re tired of Spain,” Eames says, trying for nonchalant and coming off just this side of nervous instead, like he thinks Arthur still doesn’t get how much each of these little offers mean.

Arthur smiles and shifts his weight. “It _has_ been a while since I’ve been to London.”

Eames grins with the side of his mouth, his lips pulling up into something resembling the familiar smirk that Arthur has grown so fond of, and Arthur can tell that things might turn out alright after all. Maybe not today, and maybe not for a while, but he can tell that Eames is still in this as much as he is and maybe if they don’t scare each other off this time, they’ll get it right. 

“No guarantees though,” Eames says, and Arthur thinks that this time he knows what Eames is getting at, that this time he knows better what it means to take things for granted. 

Arthur laughs and agrees. “No guarantees.”


End file.
